It’s no secret that cognitive behavioral psychotherapy works with a person’s thinking. Here we adhere to the concept that there is a certain alternative stream of automatic thinking that plays an evaluative role in a person’s worldview. In other words, automatic thoughts have such a direct connection with emotions precisely because they form them. A situation occurred - my friend with whom we were working on a project, during the report he hardly mentioned my contribution to it, so the listeners could get the impression that he was the only one who tried and did a great job. I didn’t like it. I noticed that at certain moments of his speech the following thoughts arose in my head: - Hold your horses! - Am I a joke to you? - That’s a radish! And what was that? This is not a continuation of thoughts and not a conclusion , just in case. It is my sincere surprise that we often stop at formulating such thoughts. And what benefit do they have for our well-being or the psychotherapeutic process? I call such thoughts - plugs. Because they are cognitive plugs. Look: - Hold your horses! What did I mean? Obviously, the result of this exclamation is my indignation. Well, what angered me? - My friend, you’re saying too much - they can charge us for such impudence, but we both have to take the rap. You're setting me up, you don't take my opinion into account. Great, it's become clearer. - Am I a joke to you? - Listen, it’s so ugly. I understand that you are speaking, but I came up with this particular part. Please provide attribution. You take all the credit for yourself and don’t share it. You're leaving me and ruining our friendship. - What a radish! - That is, even at the end of the presentation you didn’t bother to announce the author’s contribution. This is clearly malicious intent, nothing less. Well, I’ll arrange it for you now! So, we have: surprise, indignation, anger and resentment. Yes, it was possible to count these emotions based on primary exclamations, without additional elaboration. But it is definitely impossible to establish their origin without it. People tend to formulate their automatic thoughts briefly, emotionally. Exclamations, metaphors, questions and even interjections. In the practice of every psychologist there are a couple of dozen sessions in which such “thoughts” were “Ah!” or “Wow!” or “How come?” I’m not saying that such phrases are taboo and should not be used. I’m just trying to remind you that, although they carry an emotional experience, they do not reveal the essence of the situation. Therefore, it’s not worth working through them as they are. It is better to expand and formulate the client’s actual train of thought in a work situation. Let it be longer, but you won’t be mistaken with the conclusions. How do you work with such thoughts? More interesting: Center for Practical Psychology of Ryaz State Medical University Sign up for a consultation: Andrey Varlamov – clinical psychologist, CBT therapist